Now You See Me
by collegefangirl3791
Summary: Loki's response to Frigga's death. One-shot.


Now You See Me

"Your mother is dead."

Loki nodded once, slow and cold, his eyes devoid of emotion. The Einherjar walked away. Loki glanced once more at his book, then stood, very deliberately. The book was set on the table with a soft rustle of leather and paper.

 _"You might want to take the stairs to the left."_

He looked down at the smooth white floor of his cell. His fault. His fault again.

His fists clenched and his magic pulsed, destroying the furniture that Frigga had brought him to make him more comfortable. The book fell to the floor with a solid thump.

The fallen prince of Asgard didn't have total control of his magic, but he could still hide the cell from all other eyes; to an outside observer, it appeared that he remained in his chair, reading a book. Nothing was out of place.

That was not what was really happening. He was not sure whether to cry or rage and he did not particularly want to do either, but his stomach was twisted in that nauseating mix of hatred, fury, and heartbreak that had become all too familiar in the past decade or so. He'd become adept at ignoring it, but this was something else. Something volcanic. His magic twisted in his chest.

 _"Then am I not your mother?"_

 _"You're not."_

Sentiment.

Pathetic.

He abruptly walked back to where the book lay and picked it up; with a whispered spell; it flared up in a blaze of white flame and was gone. His hand stung, but he didn't care. He didn't care.

He never cared anymore. It was a strange feeling, not caring. Invincible, but only because he was dead.

The food that had been sitting on the table was still in fairly good shape.

He sneered bitterly and slammed his fist into a wall. It stung a little, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

None of the guards or the other prisoners would see what Loki went through over the next few hours, his armor gone, literally and figuratively, his hands and feet bleeding from the abuse he put them through. He was exhausted, overusing his magic against the cell's constraints.

Sometime during all the torment he broke four of his right fingers.

He didn't bother healing them.

The hurt felt good.

He looked up from his seat on the floor, examining his broken fingers, when something told him Thor was there.

 _"Thor, help me, please."_

 _"Are you ever_ not _going to fall for that?"_

He focused on his illusion and Thor, who walked up to the cell wall in a cloak.

The illusion sneered. The illusion was cold and did not care that Mother - Frigga had just died. "After all this time, now you come to visit me, brother."

 _You want to be my brother again, Thor, and yet you haven't come until now. How amusing._

"Why? Is it to gloat? To mock?"

Thor stared at the illusion with blue eyes washed out with anger and sadness. "Enough."

Both Loki and the illusion frowned a little.

"No more illusions."

Loki's eyes widened and he hesitated for a moment, but then with a sigh he allowed the illusion to dissolve, revealing the destruction in his cell.

The brokenness.

He stared at Thor and waited for the mockery, but his brother was staring at the blood on the floor.

The blood on the walls.

Sentiment.

"Now you see me, brother," he said dryly. Bitterly.

Thor walked around the cell to it's other wall. They were closer now. Loki could see the tired lines around Thor's eyes, which gave him both a spiteful kind of pleasure and a sad sense of inevitability.

Ah yes, sentiment.

It was easy for the God of Lies to tell himself that it was only Thor who was afflicted with that particular flaw.

 _"Trust my rage."_

 _"I didn't do it for him."_

* * *

 **A/N: So, here I am actually trying to write a one-shot about Loki. I was not anxious to do so because I didn't feel certain I could do his character justice. Hiddleston has made such a layered character with him, all the madness and anger and pain and heartbreak and mischief and love, that it's very hard to know how to write him. But I did my best.**

 **Please review if you liked this! Or if you didn't, either way.**


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